


The White and the Black

by aderyn



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Post Reichenbach, talismans & tokens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-17
Updated: 2013-04-17
Packaged: 2017-12-08 19:26:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/765120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/pseuds/aderyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now London’s got him again, brief and sweet as a kiss.  </p>
<p> <br/>John has a talisman from Afghanistan.  Sherlock takes it with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The White and the Black

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday to [ BlackMorgan](http://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackMorgan/pseuds/BlackMorgan)! Some black birds and magic for you.

 

He's left so many times.

His house is a house of aces, danger played out and playing.

Now London’s got him again, brief and sweet as a kiss. The air full of cedar and fresh leaf under the pavement. Not a London smell. And not from this drawer either, with its waft of desert; John’s old drawer, upstairs bedroom, Baker Street, where not long ago John white-shirted bedside stared at the wall for 2.2 blank minutes, paced left, right, touched the scar, tried to write something down on his palm with a dead pen and left, never to return.

Lean in; observe. Sock. Metal. Left behind? Accident, surely. Copper oblong burnt with birds, Afghani, black, _T. m. maximus_ maybe; white, unknown, copper whorls. There to be lifted.

John’ll know. No he won’t. He’s gone. Gone from there and from here. He’s not as addicted to his past as he is to what it signifies.The rush. Danger.

_You,_ say the birds.

You, he says to the birds.

What do you protect him from?

What do I?

Takes them in his hand. Slips them in a pocket.

He’s got to go.  
  
Sleeps with his fingers round the edges, sleeps in his coat; halfway cross the world the next day, (starved, spent, a shade) he breathes on the hot metal, gives his ketones to the etched wings.  
  
 *******

_John. (_ Say the birds at last.) _He’s five months dead and you think of that token you brought back from the desert for no reason you can think of._

_John._

_His house is a house of aces. Danger._

_Gone you think, gone, but not dead; here we are, desert protectors._

_You know us, don’t you,_

_the white bird and the black._

 

**Author's Note:**

> Couldn't help but think of this gorgeous art by [ justgot1](http://justgot1.tumblr.com/post/45677988747/birds-not-for-any-particular-fic-this-time-just).
> 
>  
> 
> [Close cousin of T. m. maximus](http://naturechronicles.com/gallery/v/Feather/Blackbird_Indian-5177_fcw.jpg.html)


End file.
